Established in early 2008, VCBC has been trying captive breeding with its 29 pairs of adult caged vultures. However, its efforts were futile this year also as eggs laid for the first time by four pairs of the birds failed to hatch. [break]
The vultures brooded over the eggs which failed to hatch even as the offspring of wild vultures were starting to fledge.
“The vultures were really a picture of despair,” said Dev Bahadur Khadka, conservation officer at Chitwan National Park. “Our dream of catching the vultures hatching on CCTV remained unfulfilled this year also,” Khadka added.
Park staff had stop visiting the main breeding spots except for feeding the birds once their reproducing season started. “We tried our best to create a favorable environment for the vultures to reproduce. But, we could not succeed,” said Khadka, who is taking care of the hatchery at the breeding center.
Unlike most other bird species, which lay and hatch their eggs in summer, vultures hatch in winter.
“This is the distinction that has made vultures a true friend of nature. Vultures have a completely district way of breeding and it is amusing also,” said Dr Hemsagar Baral, an ornithologist.
It takes more than 100 days between the time a vulture lays eggs and the fledglings make their first flights out of the nest, Baral said.
He also informed that a proper breeding environment is very necessary as it has a longer breeding period. He said the failure at captive breeding was really disappointing.
Baral surmised that the captive breeding did not succeed as vultures in the wild are accustomed to making bigger nests high up in the trees and they might not be habituated to hatching in small nests in captivity. The captive vultures also lacked breeding experience.
Baral proposed two solutions to the problem. According to him, a vulture will lay another egg if the first egg is removed from the nest immediately after it is laid. The stolen egg could be hatched in an incubator while the vulture hatches the second one naturally.
The center is preparing to hatch vultures in incubators from next year.
The numbers of vultures, which help to clean up our environment by eating up carcasses, has tumbled due to limiting habitats and diclofenac, the drug used in the treatment of livestock.
Out of the nine vulture species found in Nepal, eight are endangered, including the white-rumped vulture, slender-billed vulture and the red-headed vulture, which are said to be critically endangered.
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